Until There Was You by Kristan Higgins

Posey Osterhagen can’t complain. She owns a successful architectural salvaging company, she’s surrounded by her lovable, if off-center, family and she has a boyfriend—sort of. Still, something’s missing. Something tall, brooding and criminally good-looking…something like Liam Murphy.

When Posey was sixteen, the bad boy of Bellsford, New Hampshire, broke her heart. But now he’s back, sending Posey’s traitorous schoolgirl heart into overdrive once again. She should be giving him a wide berth, but it seems fate has other ideas….

Cordelia Wilhelmina Osterhagen, otherwise known as Posey, is the adopted daughter of German restaurant owners in a small New Hampshire town. She seems to be swimming along just fine until Liam Murphy returns to town, teenage daughter in tow.

Liam Declan Murphy (I think he might be Irish…), bad-boy, sex-on-a-stick, beautiful green eyes and black hair (damn, I wish he was real), worked for the Osterhagens as a teenager, which allowed Posey daily access to him, and with just enough rope to hang herself, she fell in love with him, until one day her breaks her fragile little heart (of course). Liam’s former bad-boy ways and blinding beauty makes him an easy and repeated mark for females since he was fourteen, and until Emma, his high school love who he later married, he took advantage of this. But now he’s back, a widower, and would like nothing better than to be left alone by the female population so he can raise his daughter in peace. And Posey is a breath of fresh air to him, because he’s used to blinding women with his beauty, but she’s been there, done that and isn’t going to fall for it again…right…

Kristan Higgins is one of my favorite authors. I eagerly anticipate each new book (sadly, only once a year), and reread her older books when I have the time (Just One of the Guys and Too Good to be True are personal favorites). She tries something new here, providing the hero’s point of view. It really works. Her heroes tend to be closed off, stoic, and unreadable, so finally seeing inside one of their heads is truly eye opening. Makes me wish she would go back and give the same treatment to her other books (particularly Catch of the Day, because Malone is an enigma).

Kristan’s books tend to have a little angst in them. Her typical heroine is likely to be, from my point of view, a little bit of a doormat. I generally read her books and think, “how can you put up with this!,” and I get a little frustrated on their behalf. Posey is no different, but she was a tough little firecracker and really likeable. As for Liam, it was hard to understand his motivation for the things he did and didn’t do, but also very likable and sympathetic. Initially, I was wary of how she was going to make the two of them suitable (and believable) for each other, but she pulled that trick out of the hat. She’s very good at connecting the dots between two characters that are so different, but end up together in the end. This book was sweet, funny, and touching. Very good show, Ms. Higgins!

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2 thoughts on “Until There Was You by Kristan Higgins”

My issue with this book was that I felt like Liam didn’t love Posey as much as she loved him, he had too much on his plate to really pay attention to Posey and by the time he comes to his senses it was too little too late for me.